The statements in this section merely provide background information related to the present disclosure and may not constitute prior art.
Conventional building construction has many problems, including considerable on-site construction time and financial expense required to construct a structure, such as a multi-story home or commercial office building. Many construction projects are custom design requiring significant on-site labor, and so is subject to a variety of inefficiencies. New methods for construction are needed to alleviate inefficiencies with current construction techniques.
There are major challenges facing the world from dependence on fossil energy resources, which are only exacerbated by increasing population and the expansion of the urban areas. Therefore, future shortage of the fossil energy resources is expected. Another major challenge of the dependency on the fossil energy resources is the greenhouse effects on the environment, which has become scientifically evident with alarming signs. These major concerns have inspired the governments, universities, organizations, companies and concerned individuals to search for clean, renewable sources of energy. To date significant financial resources have been spent to develop reliable, clean, and renewable energy such as solar, wind, geothermal, and wave or tidal energy. Currently, there are no cost-effective solutions that are financially competitive with fossil energy sources, and so fossil energy resources remain the main energy supplier, providing approximately 92% of energy needed. Nevertheless, solar energy is the most successful, renewable, and widely used energy due its availability on earth.
The solar energy is the most abundant source of energy that can be captured and directed for human use. Although, there are many factors such as geography, time variation, cloud cover, and the space availability, that limit the amount of solar energy we can capture. Essentially, two types of solar energy projects are typically adopted; commercial, and private. The commercial projects are usually adopted by governments and companies, while the private projects are usually adopted by individuals to meet the energy needs of their own houses and businesses. The focus of this concept is on the private projects adopted by individuals. There are many basic factors that limit the individuals from using the solar energy, such as the cost of the panels and their installation, availability of the space, and negative ornamental effect on the building. Since many people have discovered that they can collect energy directly from their homes, roofs have become a common suitable site for placing solar cells. Nevertheless, the negative ornamental effect, and structural damage on the roof still remain as the undesirable consequences.
Therefore, it would be advantageous to offer construction methods and building kits to reduce or mitigate the known deficiencies and inefficiencies noted above including methods and kits that incorporate solar cells.